Top 15 producers of c-Si and thin film solar PV modules, and outlook 2011

I am extremely grateful to Stefan de Haan, senior analyst, Photovoltaics, iSuppli Corp., for sharing with me the top 15 global producers of c-Si and thin film solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, respectively during Q3 2010.

First, the top 15 global crystalline module producers (see Fig. 1) — who are the standout performers and why?Source: iSuppli, USA.

He said: “It is still the Chinese integrated suppliers, above all Trina and Yingli. They benefit from a highly competitive cost structure. However, this need not be the most successful business model in future. With increasing cell and module efficiencies, and an increasing need for full automization, European and Japanese companies may gain ground again.”

Now, on to the top 15 global thin film module producers (see Fig. 2)– who are the standout performers here!Source: iSuppli, USA.

de Haan added: “Still, it is First Solar, the company with lowest production cost in the industry and the biggest module producer. CIGS is upcoming, in particular. Solar Frontier also has to be watched.”

Global PV installations to grow significantly in 2011
It is said that global PV installation will likely witness moderate growth in 2011, and that, concerns of oversupply remain. de Haan agrees only partly.

He said: “Global PV installations will again grow significantly in 2011 (2010: 16 GW and 2011: 22.2 GW). Oversupply will not be dramatic in 2011, but in 2012 and 2013.”

Further, if the pressure from decreasing solar cell price continues to increase, will solar cell makers be forced to reduce prices of wafers and poly-Si to reflect costs? According to Stefan de Haan, prices will drop across the entire solar value chain in 2011!

Need to develop robust Indian semicon industry, led by local companies!

I came across an article titled “Global Semiconductor Companies Turn to India for Growth” published on India Knowledge@Wharton. Isn’t this reason why global semiconductor companies enter a specific market in the first place — to grow their own markets and regions? So, why should it be different with India?

India is very well known globally for its talent, chip design capabilities (especially in the Indian arms of the global semicon firms) and as the world’s embedded bastion!

This particular article is brilliantly written, and kudos the author. The clinching paragraph is tucked away at the end, starting with: “None of the global players, however, is currently looking at setting up a semiconductor fabrication plant, or “fab,” in India.”

What’s happened up until now in the Indian semicon industry? If one were to look at the Special Incentive Package Scheme (SIPS), which was introduced back in Sept. 2007 by the government of India, it was geared toward encouraging investments for setting up semicon fabs, and other micro and nanotechnology manufacturing industries in India!

It also defined the “ecosystem units” as units, other than a fab unit, for manufacture of semiconductors, displays including LCDs, OLEDs, PDPs, any other emerging displays; storage devices; solar cells; photovoltaics; other advanced micro and nanotechnology products; and assembly and test of all the above products.

A Karnataka Semicon Policy was announced in early Feb. 2010, during the India Semiconductor Association’s ( ISA) Vision Summit.

Next, the government of India’s thrust on solar/PV, via the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JN-NSM), has at least ensured the country’s solar/PV future.

What has happened since all of these policies? Really, nothing much, at least from the perspective of the Indian semicon industry. If it has, at least, I am unaware, and my apologies for this ignorance.

Of course, solar/PV seems to be going from strength to strength! Recently, NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd (NVVN) put out the list of selected solar projects under the JN-NSM Phase 1, Batch 1. But that’s another story!

On this very blog, there are several posts that speak of India’s ability or inability to build a fab. At first, folks said that semicon fabs were on their way in India, and that the story isn’t disappearing. However, somewhere along the line, that particular vision took a beating and fabs simply disappeared from the Indian semicon radar!

So, where is India?
Well, we all know that so far, India has not even managed to have a small foundry, forget about having a fab! We’ve have had semicon policies (eg. SIPS), but all it has led to is the so-called growth of the Indian solar/PV industry — and that too largely because of the Indian government’s focus on JN-NSM. The results are there for everyone to see.

The Indian semiconductor industry has not even managed to develop, nurture and build many (or any?) fabless companies of note. Very few semicon product start-ups of note have happened. Again, if there are many such entities, and they are also flourishing, please pardon me for my ignorance.

Can anyone tell us how many Indian fabless semicon companies have come up in the past five years? How many globally known Indian semicon product start-ups are there in our country for that matter? Where are the ATMP units? Even a mixture of 10 such companies does not constitute an industry, similar to one sunny day not making a summer!

Top 20 global semicon suppliers of 2010!

I've just received a report from iSuppli, which says that the global semiconductor revenue expands by record margin in 2010 -- to $304 billion in 2010, up from $229.5 billion in 2009. This represents growth of 32.5 percent for the year! Fantastic!!

This growth is said to be courtesy of a boom in DRAM and NAND sales benefiting memory suppliers.

One hopes the semicon industry turns in an equally better performance in 2011.

In the meantime, I'd like to share with you iSuppli's preliminary ranking of the Top 20 semiconductor suppliers in 2010.Source: iSuppli, USA.

As per iSuppli, Marvell Technology Group is likely to achieve organic revenue growth of more than 43 percent and jump five places to the No. 18 spot in 2010.

Qualcomm and AMD, and Sony have experienced revenue growth notably less than the overall market. Therefore, they will likely slip three to four positions in the rankings in 2010.

After a number of years of dramatically outperforming the market, Taiwan's MediaTek fell back to earth in 2010, as it will barely achieve revenue growth at 1.2 percent, the only company among the Top 20 to not achieve a double-digit increase. The company is likely to slip to No. 19 in the rankings, down from No. 16 place in 2009.

Only one company is at risk of dropping out of the list of 20. iSuppli projects that nVidia will retain its ranking at No. 20. However, ROHM Semiconductor is competing for the final slot among the Top 20 and the final outcome should be very close.

I hope to get into a conversation with iSuppli regarding the top 20 semicon suppliers.

Mentor’s Wally Rhines on global EDA industry challenges – II

This is the concluding part of my discussion with Dr. Walden (Wally) C. Rhines, chairman and CEO, Mentor Graphics.

EDA’s role in modeling and photomask correction
I asked Dr. Rhines about the future of EDA’s role in modeling and photomask correction. He said that in just a decade, resolution enhancement has grown from zero to over $200 million in annual revenue for the EDA industry.

“Almost all of this revenue is concentrated in two EDA companies. The value of this EDA software is clearly recognized by manufacturers. Mentor has many partnerships with manufacturers and a joint development program targeting 20nm resolution enhancement with IBM.”

Handling 22nm and sub-22nm levels
Next, with new process technology nodes becoming quite the talk of the desgin community, what does EDA now need to do at 22nm and sub 22nm levels.

Dr. Rhines said: “We have been working with our customers on this for quite some time now and are in fact well down this path. We think that most of the problems have been solved, or are solvable. Obviously, most of the issues here revolve around the lithography and manufacturability, but the EDA industry has been leading this since optical proximity correction became a key technology for the fabs quite some time ago.”

Density area savings
In an earlier discussion, the issue of how compelling would integration density area savings remain by going to new nodes had come up. I have to repeat this question, as it still seems to remain an issue.

So, how long will the integration density area savings you get by going to new nodes remain compelling?

“Hard to say!” noted Dr. Rhines. “We can see a path to 15nm with the traditional 193nm immersion lithography, and we usually surprise ourselves in our ability to go farther than we think we can. However, even if density slows down, this is but one way to achieve the continuous performance improvements that we’ve seen over the years in silicon.

“3D silicon, for instance, holds the promise of allowing us to continue to grow performance without necessarily doing it by just continuing the process shrink. Logic and memory have been on a predictable “learning curve” since the vacuum tube and I don’t expect that learning curve to deviate anytime in the foreseeable future.”

Mentor's Wally Rhines on global EDA industry challenges - I

It has always been such a pleasure meeting Dr. Walden (Wally) C. Rhines, CEO and chairman, Mentor Graphics Corp. During his recent visit to India, I managed to enter into a discussion with him regarding various issues facing the global EDA industry.

Part one of the discussion looks at the industry, as well as EDA related issues such as predictability, verification and IP integration, how can Mentor help start-ups address EDA challenges, and going about software-to-silicon verification. May I also take this opportunity to thank my good friend, Mentor’s Veeresh Shetty.

I began by asking Dr. Rhines about the fortunes of the global EDA industry and what’s it going to be like in 2011?

He said: “The EDA industry typically follows the recovery in semiconductor industry R&D spending by six to 12 months. Mentor’s strong results in Q3 (with 60 percent growth in bookings) suggest that the recovery has already started. In our third quarter conference call, we indicated to our investors that 2011 looks like a good year as well.”

Improving predictability of design process
Coming to the EDA industry challenges, how much has EDA helped improve the predictability of the design process? Dr. Rhines said: "Well, since few, if any, do design without EDA, quite a lot! More seriously, there have been a great number of advances in the last few years that have really improved predictability.

"From intelligent test benches and emulation,that dramatically improve the verification of design, to advanced design-for-manufacturing and yield analysis techniques that greatly improve predictability of results and manufacturability in the back end."

Verification focus and need for ESA
Have the EDA tools made verification process cost effective and focus on design as well as IP integration? According to him, the cost of design really hasn’t changed that much in the last decade, at least in terms of hardware design.

"So, I think that says that we have been pretty effective as an industry in delivering cost effective design tools. In fact, the EDA software cost per transistor has decreased as fast, or faster, than the other “input” cost of semiconductors like manufacturing equipment, materials, etc.

"Evolution of third-party IP also has decreased the cost of creating SoCs and the EDA tools to integrate and verify that IP have kept pace with the increase in IP block complexity. The increase in chip development cost that designers have experienced is largely the result of the growing cost and complexity of embedded software. We need more ESA (Embedded Software Automation) to complement the benefits of EDA."

UCLA researchers to develop non-volatile logic technology

Early this month, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded an $8.4 million grant to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science for research on a technology known as non-volatile logic, which enables computers and electronic devices to keep their state even while powered off, then start up and run complex programs instantaneously.

The research has broad implications across a range of technologies, including portable electronics, remote sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and high-performance computing. UCLA Engineering researchers will conduct studies into the materials, design, fabrication and tools used to develop such technologies.

"To achieve the ambitious goals of this program, we are planning to introduce key innovations in terms of both material and device structures. This is an opportunity to study new nano-magnetic physics while developing an exciting technology," said research associate Pedram Khalili, who will be the project manager at UCLA, in a release.

Thanks to Ms Wileen Wong Kromhout, director of Media Relations & Marketing, UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, I was able to connect with Pedram Khalili, research associate, Department of Electrical Engineering, UCLA, and project manager, UCLA-DARPA STT-RAM and NV Logic Programs.

Logic technology could lead to instant-on computers
First, I asked Khalili what's this technology that is known as non-volatile logic all about? He said: "In a nutshell, it is a logic technology, which retains its state, while doing computation. That means, you can turn it off, and turn it on again, and it will resume the computation where it had left off. This is not the case with the current computers. Hence, it can lead to instant-on computers."

UCLA Engineering researchers will also conduct studies into the materials, design, fabrication and tools used to develop such technologies. So, what are these materials, design, tools, etc. going to be? Khalili added: "The materials will be ferromagnetic, i.e., we will be using dynamic phenomena -- known as spin waves -- in magnetic thin films to perform logic. The memory effect (i.e., non-volatility) will also be provided by a magnetic memory bit."

The UCLA researchers are said to be aiming to develop a prototype non-volatile logic circuit, which could lead to development of new classes of ultra–low-power, high-performance electronics. Khalili noted, "The prototype that we refer to will be a logic circuit performing a logic operation in a non-volatile manner."

The researchers are also planning to introduce key innovations in terms of both material and device structures. This is said to an opportunity to study new nano-magnetic physics, while developing an exciting technology. Khalili clarified, "Generally, we will be looking for new ways to control magnetization on the nanoscale, in a fast and energy-efficient manner."

The project will be led by UCLA under principal investigators Kang Wang and Alex Khitun, an assistant research engineer, and will involve researchers from UCLA, UC Irvine, Yale University and the University of Massachusetts.

On a personal note, I am extremely delighted to touch base with such a renowned and globally acclaimed institution like the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and its researchers/faculty.

Am looking forward to many more interactions with UCLA and several other globally renowned institutes, and hopefully, with many such institutes from India who are doing cutting-edge technology research.

Local know-how, innovation (Jugaad) keys to realizing semicon/electronics growth in India

“We can’t just rely on making chips,” said Neeraj Paliwal, VP and NXP India country manager, while delivering his keynote: Semiconductor products for Indian market – leapfrog R&D workforce to product creation, at the recently held Mentor Graphics U2U conference. Local know-how and innovation hold the keys to realizing growth in the Indian context.

According to him, the semicon industry has evolved from initially being technology driven to customer driven, and lately, society driven. Paliwal listed four key macro growth drivers in electronics: energy efficiency, connected mobile devices, security and health.

Energy efficiency
* Efficient power conversion and low stand-by power.
* Energy-saving lighting and back-lighting.
* Energy conservation through demand side management.
* Electric/lighter vehicles, intelligent traffic management.

Connected mobile devices
* Proliferation of mobile data usage, wireless infra build-out.
* Smart mobile devices: always-on, multimedia, location-based.
* Connected car, many broadcast & connectivity standards.
* New user interfaces (e.g., touch, joystick).

Security
* Secure mobile transactions and secure identity.
* Authentication, tagging and tracking.
* Car and home access, security and remote diagnostics.
* Radar and (body) scanning installations.

Health
* Personal healthcare and portable emergency devices.
* Connected hearing aids and implantable devices.
* Car safety and comfort.
* Electronic diagnostics.

Jugaad — Indian flavor of innovation
In the Indian context, local know-how holds the key to realizing growth! Here, Paliwal introduced “Jugaad” an Indian word, which simply means an improvisational style of doing things or innovation, largely driven by or making use of scare resources available.

There is a need to develop an innovation mindset with the focus on revenue growth to reach new markets. Well, it should help when the innovations look at solving local problems first, and later, go on to address related or similar international problems.

Some examples of Indian innovations, include Tata’s water filter for rural poor for $20, which does not run on electricity; and Tata’s Nano car, which aims to reach the bottom of the pyramid. Also, John Deere’s weather recession with help from innovation. In fact, innovation could well be India’s next global export.

India has a National Innovation Council, with the aim to provide a broader plaform for innovation to redefine the understanding of innovation and move beyond the formal R&D paradigm. Another example of innovation — wireless kiosks for rural India.